A delegation of European Union Election Observation Mission on Monday visited the court-recognised faction of the Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara state, led by Hon Ishola Balogun-Fulani.
The two-man delegation, Gabor Basch Mashed Paulsen and who arrived the Agba-Dam party secretariat of the party around 1.00pm were received by Balogun-Fulani, Secretary, Chief Christopher Ayeni, Kwara South Senatorial chairman, Alhaji Jimoh Balogun and other members of the party’s executive.
The EU delegation later went into a closed door session with the executive of the party.
Earlier while welcoming the team to Kwara state, Balogu-Fulani commended the Observer Mission which he noted has also visited the party’s national leadership.
He insisted that his faction remains the authentic leadership of the party in the state based on the subsisting court order, which he presented to the team.
He traced the history of the crisis in the party to the decision by its national leadership to dissolve the executive committee under him after they had been duly sworn-in even when there was no communication that they were leaving the APC.
He said, “When they said they dissolved us, we said, no, we are still in the party. That if we wanted to leave we would have formally communicated the party’s national leadership. And instead of resorting to self help we went to the court to challenge what they had done. The court agreed with our position and gave us permission to conduct the primaries which we did.
“The problem however was that when the INEC released the list of candidates, they didn’t list the names of our own people. Instead they wrote ‘court ordered’ against the names of people from the other camp. And we are saying that is wrong because we are the ones who have court order with us and in our favour.
“So again we have to go to court to challenge that and that is where we are now. We want to enforce the judgment and the court has fixed February 11, 2019 for that.”
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